Much, much, much later…

  The sea

  Somewhere not far from the coast of New Thrimp

  A world as yet unnamed

  -Holly-

  ‘Well,’ said a deep voice. Its owner stepped back from the job he had just finished.

  ‘Well, well,’ added another voice, equally deep, from among the onlooking crew. Male Polity almost all had deep voices.

  They stood in a wide semicircle around the central mast. Though she could barely see their faces in the dim torchlight, Holly could tell they were all smiling. The Polity smiled at everything , even—no, especially—at things that no normal person would smile at. Things like this.

  The wind blew.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said yet another deep voice.

  They were all looking upwards, at a point halfway up the mast, some twenty feet above the deck. Holly stood with them, her arms folded against the cold night air. Behind her the squat figure of a woman scurried around the deck, gathering up the remains of the beams of wood she had snapped to simulate the sound of breaking bones.

  Marco…

  She could still hear the echoes of the splintering cracks; of her own screaming; of Marco—poor, stupid Marco, believing it was all real—betraying his accomplices and begging for death. He had done exactly what she needed him to.

  ‘What’s gonna happen when he goes to the toilet?’ said another.

  The ropes that bound Marco to the mast were poorly tied, far too loosely, so that he leaned forwards and listed to the side. He slumped, his head lolling. He was unconscious, one of their anaesthetic-soaked drug-gags mercifully tied around his mouth. At least, she hoped he was unconscious; the loose ropes were already rubbing wounds into his exposed flesh. He had undertaken his mission wearing nothing but a dark loincloth, to minimise the risk of being seen sneaking aboard. They had not clothed him.

  I thought they would kill you, Marco. I never thought-

  ‘That’s a point! Give Belle a bucket, he can stand underneath him.’ This raised a chuckle from the crowd.

  ‘I’ve got a better idea.’ Belle stepped forward.

  The reflection of flickering torchlight danced on the exposed skin of his shiny bald head and the long, muscular tail that dragged along the deck behind him. Holly would never forget the image of him picking Marco up from the deck with that tail, a great naked snake of human flesh coiled around the helpless little man, hoisting him into the air. It had held him, dangling him upside-down beneath Belle as he climbed the mast; then it had held him in place while he was inexpertly tied in place. ‘How about you climb up there and put a nappy on him, eh?’

  They laughed again.

  ‘That,’ came another voice, ‘may not be a bad idea.’

  Where the others were gruff and gravelly, this one was distinctly female. It flowed like velvet, soft and languid, yet resonant; it cut through the other sounds and made itself heard without being loud. It froze Holly where she stood.

  It belonged to the commander of the ship and crew; one of the Polity’s highest-ranked elite, and by far the most intimidating person Holly had ever met.

  Gennara.

  She smiled down at them from atop her steed. The woman herself was imposing enough, all dangerous curves, dark eyes and poise almost sharp enough to cut through the leather jerkin she wore, leaving her arms bare. Combined with the Goblin on which she rode, the effect was doubly terrifying. Holly would have described it as a horse with human legs and feet and no head or neck, but it was bigger than any horse and totally hairless, veins and muscles bulging through tightly-stretched, poreclain-white skin. Together, they radiated power.

  ‘And tie him up properly while you’re up there,’ she added. ‘He’s a prisoner, not a bloody flag.’

  ‘Ah… You mean, actually for real, Your Grace?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Yes, for real. I don’t want things splattering down on my deck.’

  ‘Er…’ began Belle, pointing to himself uncertainly. Is it me that you’re wanting to climb back up there and do that, er, task, Your Grace? The putting of the, the er, nappy, ah, on the… er, gentleman?’

  ‘No, Mr. Hammerplank. Though your prowess in climbing is beyond question and does you great credit, when it comes to tying things securely in place your level of skill appears to be broadly comparable to that of my grandmother’s dog.’

  ‘Sincerest apologies, Your Grace,’ Belle grinned.

  ‘Which, I might add, is dead.’ Belle bowed his head in mock chastisement as the rest of the crew laughed. ‘Lady Subtletouch—you have, I believe, experience in the use of nappies, and hopefully the dexterity lacking in Mr. Hammerplank that prevents him from properly tying a rope around a “er, gentleman”, as he so generously designates our guest. I would bestow this particular honour upon you, if you would be so kind.’

  ‘Aye, Your Grace,’ said Lady Subtletouch, stepping forwards and saluting. She had an unremarkable face, long and angular, with a mean, thin-lipped mouth, but when Holly saw the hand raised to the woman’s forehead, she gasped.

  The hand was twice as large as any normal hand, the palm the size of a man’s foot. The fingers stopped at the first knuckle, where each branched into three longer, skinnier fingers; each of these was half a foot in length, with a full complement of knuckles and a long, dark nail, totalling twelve on a single hand. They undulated slightly, almost independently of one another, in a way that reminded Holly more of snakes than of fingers. Her thumb, in contrast with the slender, fragile-looking fingers, was a huge, meaty thing, like the arm of a newborn. At the end of the thumb, Holly noted with revulsion, was another small, five-fingered hand.

  She had seen a number of Polity body-modifications—‘betterments’, as they called them—while on the ship, but this was perhaps the most shocking. She looked down at the woman’s other hand in morbid fascination; it, too, was moving, clenching and unclenching, like a bored octopus hanging at her side. Then, as she watched, the fingers—apparently having two-directional knuckles—uncurled and curled back in the other direction, this time forming a fist backwards, with the back of her hand as the palm. Holly stared at the planks beneath her feet, desperately willing herself not to vomit.

  The woman came forward and applied her bizarre appendages to her task. Her other hand was just like the first; they ripped up spare sailcloth from a box on deck with frightening ease, tearing it surgically with those foul black talons, then wrapped themselves around the thick wooden mast, making light work of the climb. Holly watched in fascination as she tended to Marco, wrapping an improvised nappy securely around him in multiple loops and securing him firmly to the mast with surprising gentleness. It seemed only moments before she was back on the deck.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Gennara.

  With unspoken commands, she walked her Goblin forwards to stand before her crew. ‘And now that that has been taken care of’—she clapped once and raised her voice—‘there is something I wish to say to you all. Gather round, my sailors. Attend me.’ The loose semicircle around her tightened. A few more crew members drifted over from various corners of the ship.

  ‘Come,’ she said, and walked her Goblin over to the side railing. The crew followed and looked out to where she pointed. ‘Look. Those lights you see over there in the distance—that is our home. Comfort. Safety. The people we love. All that we know lies in that tiny, far-off yellow patch of light. That one little spot on the horizon. That is the part of the world that belongs to us.’

  She turned the Goblin and it padded over to the other side of the ship, the crew following. ‘Now. Look,’ she said, gesturing towards the endless darkness. ‘What do you see? Put your hand down, Belle, it’s a rhetorical question. You cannot answer it, because you do not know.’ She continued softly. ‘You have no idea what you are looking at. No idea at all. Nor do I. Nobody does. That… That, my brave adventurers, is the rest of the world. The part that is not ours. The unknown. We do not know how big it is, or whether it even has an end.

  There are only two things we know: one is that it is absolutely, unfathomably enormous, bigger than our tiny minds can even begin to comprehend. That little patch of yellow light we live in, what he have until now considered the entire world, would fit into it perhaps a thousand, perhaps a million times. Probably more. The other thing we know is that, as far as we can tell, that infinite expanse of unknown world you see before you, and upon which we currently float, is made up almost entirely’—she paused and swept her gaze over the crew, meeting their eyes, then she leaned over the railing and pointed down, to where the black water rolled and frothed below them—‘of that. Freezing, deep, uncaring sea. Freezing, undrinkable, deadly water. Now, precious ones, I want you to imagine something for me. Put your celebrations to one side for a moment. Shut your eyes.’

  Unquestioningly, they obeyed. Something in the soft richness of that voice compelled her, and Holly found herself closing her eyes along with them.

  ‘Picture this ship, one hour ago. Remember yourself going happily about your business. I say happily—try to remember exactly how you were feeling. Proud, no doubt, to be involved in such prestigious work. Eager, too, for the welcome we will receive on arrival. And even more eager, I imagine, for the rewards of another successful delivery to be enjoyed on the return journey. Edged, perhaps, with the slightest hint of worry; for the sea is a heartless and hungry thing, and we are new visitors here. Now, imagine yourself a few hours into the voyage; the journey well underway, the ship sailing well. The steady rocking begins to feel familiar beneath your feet. We all start to relax a little. You listen to the calming sounds of the sea and start to think that a sailor’s life could be a very fine life indeed, when suddenly, from the stern you hear a mighty crack and crash and the splintering of wood. Then, moments later, the screams of your crewmates. You run towards the sounds to find them, these same people standing around you now, covered in blood, parts blasted off, bleeding and dying on what remains of the deck. Then you look around to see what caused this carnage, and you experience the unspeakable horror of realising that this ship, the miracle of engineering keeping us alive in the middle of the merciless sea, has been blown apart with a bomb. And is sinking.’

  The feet of her Goblin padded gently and assuredly on the planking, slowly turning as Gennara glared imperiously at her crew, holding them still and silent, allowing the weight of her words to settle on them.

  Smiles faded.

  ‘Imagine clinging to the last chunks of it as it goes down, desperately looking around you trying to work out what direction home is. Knowing that even if you swim until you die of cold and exhaustion you have no hope of reaching it but wanting, at least, to die facing the right direction.

  Now. Cast your mind beyond this pitiful scene. Leave your little body to sink. Do not dwell on what will be eating it, down in the freezing depths. Instead travel up, up until you are looking down on our blasted little wreck of wood and flesh from high above, like a bird. Look how utterly, utterly surrounded it is by the black, empty nothingness of the sea. Look at the sheer distance it has travelled. And now, look back at the place it came from. Look at the dock from which we departed, empty now, the smiling faces that sent us on our way now back in their homes, safe and warm. The faces of your husbands, wives, friends, parents, lovers, aunts. Your children.

  Do you think, my brave little sea-creatures, that they sleep now? They do not, I promise you. They worry. Their minds are full of you, sweet ones, wondering whether you will survive your journey. imagining all the awful things that could happen to adventurers floating out here in a little wooden bucket. Counting the hours until they can be sure again that you are well. Wishing for your safety. Thinking of how they will welcome your and shower you with their love when you return. Reassuring one another that you will be safe, trying to sound more certain than they really are.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Imagine, now, those beloved faces when a knock comes at the door at night. Picture those faces you love and how they change when the figure at the door sadly shakes his head and delivers his grim news in a low voice, not wanting the children to hear. The news that you will not cross that doorway again.

  Imagine, now, your funeral.’

  As she turned, the amber glow of torchlight danced over the curves of her skin, painting her in undulating patterns of light and shadow. She held her crew in thrall, their grins of moments ago dispelled. Holly looked sidelong at the sailors nearest her; they stood with their heads bowed.

  ‘You know the ones you love. Think: what would they do to commemorate your death? Some would celebrate your life, no doubt—a riot of debauchery and wildness to remember you and the joy you brought them. Others, perhaps… a quiet memorial on a hillside. Your children reciting your favourite poems. An uncle’s hand on their shoulder to keep them brave.’

  The creaking of the ship sounded like the breath of a living thing; a guardian that kept them from the clutches of the infinite, roaring sea. Suddenly, Holly felt immense gratitude towards it.

  ‘And now, my sweet things, imagine the following days. Imagine the Polity’s response to an anonymous attack on their precious ship. Imagine the meetings deep within the Manse. Imagine what would be said. The questions that would be asked. The decisions that would be made.’ Her voice grew louder, her words faster; ‘They would not sit idle; the Manse would bustle with quiet activity while they prepared, and then there would be war, and the fact that the enemy is hidden would not stay their hands. I talk of a return to darker times, loves. Digging around to root enemies out, causing harm where we dig, creating new enemies. Enemies for those we left behind. Imagine your children growing up as many of us did, as our parents and grandparents did. Soldiers. Warriors. Hearts and memories full of blood and pain and anger. That,’ she shouted, sweeping an accusing arm upwards towards where Marco hung limply.

  ‘…that pathetic thing is the greatest threat we have ever faced. That came just a roll of the dice away from bringing to pass all that you just imagined. That is the result of months of planning and coordination and meticulous preparation by our most dangerous enemies. That, sweet things, is the most dangerous thing in the world: a man who hates you so much he is ready and willing to kill himself in order to kill you.’

  Holly felt the air almost burn with intensity. She looked around her and saw clenched fists, brows furrowed in anger. Tears glistened on many faces.

  ‘The reason I have him suspended twenty feet in the air, cupcakes, is not some perverted sense of ornamentation. Nor is it to protect you from him, fierce though he may be. No. It is to protect him—a man who tried to make orphans of your children, widows of your husbands and wives—from you.’

  There was another moment’s silence, a moment that seemed to last days. Holly looked around her, unsure how to react. Every sailor’s eyes were narrowed, focused on the shadowy figure suspended above them.

  Marco… Marco, I’m so sorry. I thought they would kill you…

  ‘You would tear him limb from limb, would you not? Feed him to whatever lurks down there!’

  A chorus of affirmation rose from the crew.

  ‘Teach him a lesson!’ called Gennara, and they called back their bloodlust.

  ‘Cut him down and show him what it means to draw arms against the Polity!’

  The crew roared.

  ‘And we’ll do the same to the next one who tries!’

  They roared.

  ‘And the next one!’

  They roared.

  ‘And the next one!’

  They roared.

  But after the roar faded, quiet fell again. They waited eagerly for Gennara’s next words, but when they eventually came, they were quiet.

  ‘…and the next one? Will it be that one that sinks us? Or perhaps the one after? Listen to me, my beauties. This is why we have to keep him alive and take him back home with us. Distasteful as it may be, we must make the biggest, loudest, messiest, most public example of him we can.’

  Holly gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth.

  I thought they would kill you…

  ‘Right where everyone can see. Because if we don’t… If we don’t, this is going to happen again, and it will keep happening until they succeed. And they only need to succeed once.’

  ‘This is a new age for the Polity. We are in new, unfamiliar territory, not just geographically but economically. We are greater and stronger now than we have ever been before. We control more than we have ever controlled, produce more than we have ever produced, and have more to offer than we have ever had to offer. And what we do with this ship’—the Goblin stamped one of its mighty heels twice on the deck—‘whether we wish it or not, will make us unquestionably and unassailably the dominant power in New Thrimp.’

  A hesitant cheer began, but she continued, cutting it short; ‘Yes, my little daffodils, that is wonderful and yes, it deserves a great deal of hugs and well-dones and hip-hip-hoorays, and we will have them and, by the wings of our ancestors, we will enjoy them, but—listen now—success, wealth, resources, influence… these things do not come to us without consequence.’ Her arm flew up to point at Marco again. ‘The people of New Thrimp see us accrue those things. They admire our strength. They benefit from what we control. They use what we produce. They desire what we offer. And as the people turn their faces and lean towards us, our enemies’ grip on them weakens.’

  ‘You almost died today, you brave little soldiers. I almost died with you. Do not forget that. Do not ever forget, even for a moment, that despite what people say we can die. The day we start to believe the myth that we are invincible will be the first day of our downfall. Power does not protect us; it is the very opposite. The more power we gather, the harder they will try, and the cleverer we must be to survive. There will be more precarious journeys like this one. There will be more plots. There will be more assassins.’

  She let the silence hang. A smirk played at her lips. She raised a graceful hand. ‘Let us hope they are all as incompetent as that one.’

  The crew laughed then, and she did nothing to hold them back. With the tension broken, the laughs turned to cheers. Cheers at what they had done to Marco—no, what she had done to Marco. What they were planning to do to him. She frowned involuntarily and in the space of a horrible moment she felt the spotlight of Gennara’s gaze on her.

  ‘There is one among you not laughing,’ she called over the hubbub. Holly’s heart froze. Gennara’s eyes were fixed on her. The smirk vanished; her lips formed a hard, blade-like line. Suddenly Holly was surrounded by open space as the crew backed away from her. ‘Bring her to me.’

  A powerful arm curled around her waist and she was airborne, tucked under the arm like an animal.

  She knew. They knew…

  They were going to tie her up with Marco. Execute them both.

  She was transferred to Gennara and her body went limp as she was placed astride the enormous white Goblin, Gennara’ body a warm presence at her back. She almost slumped over, but Gennara’s hands gripped her under her arms, holding her firmly in place.

  Below her, the assembled crew stamped and cheered, pointing up at her. Many waved.

  Gennara’s voice sang out from behind her, and she felt the vibration of the woman’s chest through her shoulders:

  ‘This, you valiant adventurers,’ she called above the clamour. ‘This girl.’ The crew quieted and Gennara’s voice was once again the only sound. ‘The one you’ve come to know as Holly. She knows that man.’ She pointed up at Marco. ‘She knows him very well, in fact. That, blossoms, is the reason she is not laughing along with the rest of you. She has just witnessed the downfall of her comrade. Her friend. A man she betrayed.’

  The air felt like it was full of knives. The crew were silent, their faces questioning. In a moment, Gennara would reveal her deception and throw her to them, like a piece of meat to a pack of hungry dogs.

  ‘I would remind you, then, of two things. First; while you may feel the compulsion to jubilate, her poor little heart is likely in tatters from all she has been through today. She stands here surrounded by people who would, until very recently, have cut her down her without a thought. She walks among her enemies, entirely at our mercy, having turned her back on everyone she knows and trusts.’ She touched a single, long-nailed finger to the side of Holly’s throat. ‘Her heart is pounding like a rabbit in a cookpot, the poor flower. And with good reason.’

  This was it. Holly was going to die, and all she could do was stare dumbly at the faces of the people about to rip her limb from limb.

  ‘The second thing of which I would remind you is that she is the one reason that none of you is currently dead. She alone is the reason you will all see your loved ones again. We owe her our lives. We owe her our respect. We owe her our empathy.’

  Silence.

  The crew simply stared.

  Holly stared back.

  Then one woman at he front clapped her hands.

  Once. Twice. Three times.

  Another joined her.

  A second later, they were all clapping; not a joyous applause but a solemn, steady, rhythmic clap. A grateful, polite clap. Looking closer at their faces, she realised their hard expressions reflected not hostility, but acknowledgement. They looked on her as someone who had done something dreadful and dark for a greater purpose; for them.

  They were clapping for her. The damned Polity were clapping for her.

  Holly felt her gorge rise. The levels of deception… the risk she was running… the pressure… the stakes… what they would do to her if they knew… It was almost too much. Her instincts told her to dive, to hide, to seek safety, but she fought them down. She breathed, deep and steady, and remembered her mission. There were people depending on her. People she cared for, and who cared for her. Relying on her. She had to hold it together.

  ‘This girl’—Gennara’s strong hands moved to rest on Holly’s shoulders—‘is one of us now. The Polity look after those who look after us, do we not? Well, we have been looked after by this one to a degree beyond our power to repay, even if she were to live ten lifetimes! Truly, she has done more for us than almost anyone in living memory.

  And so, we must ask ourselves, what can we do for her? It goes without saying that, on our return to New Thrimp, she will have wealth. Wealth, we can provide in abundance. She and her relatives will have luxury, privilege, power, influence. Those things are givens. But look at her, dears. Look at her troubled face. Look how she shivers with fear. She is all alone. What I suspect this poor, traumatised slip of a thing needs more than anything right now, loves, is human warmth. Kindness. A familial welcome. And, though I hesitate to suggest it to certain members of present company for fear of what form it might take, emotional support. Affection. In time, love. What I am telling you is that Holly finds herself among us and in need of a new family. Let us make sure that she knows she has found one.

  She has had none of the privileges we enjoy. Her life until now has not been one of privilege and security. She has watched people she loves work themselves to the bone, living lives of worry and fear and difficulty. Struggling to pay our tribute. Seeing us live in comfort and luxury, safe and happy in our Manse. Blaming us for their strife.

  Her family ran a modest brewery. They paid the tribute. They sold only to us, at a price we set. If we’re brutally frank, if it weren’t for us, they’d have been far better off. As it is… well, let us call a spade a spade. They are poor. Because, at a surface level, of us.’ She paused for a moment to let that sink in.

  You would agree, would you not, Holly, that you grew up hating us?’

  It was true. There was no point lying. There were almost no families not affected by the Polity in one way or another, whether they beggared themselves paying the tribute they demanded and joined their network of preference and protection, or refused, kept their money, and left themselves vulnerable to the robbers and arsonists and sudden customer migrations that mysteriously only befell those who didn’t pay. There was no way to make any sort of a living without being victimised by the Polity sooner or later, and the poorest were hit hardest.

  She nodded.

  ‘Now, obviously the tribute is necessary and the benefits to the payers far outweigh the cost in the long term, but through the eyes of a young girl—educated in a local government school, with no understanding of the complexities of economics, going without while we take from her struggling family, with no understanding of why we do it or what we are trying to create—you can imagine how we must look. She has every reason to hate us.

  Then, when she finished school, just over half a year ago, there was no family business left for her to join. Iinstead, she joined a rebel terrorist cell. There, she spent the following months gathering information about us, recruiting more members, and plotting to kill us.’

  Holly saw brows furrow in the mass of faces staring up at her.

  ‘Then a few weeks ago, she came to the Manse. All by herself. She just walked up to the front door and asked to speak to the Supervisor! Imagine! Instead, they brought her to me. She told me of a plot. A plot to plant two Selfborn operatives armed with explosives aboard a Polity ship and blow it up.’

  I’m so sorry, Marco…

  ‘You all heard the names that boy gave up. They were the exact same ones Holly gave me that day. Including one you all know. Ken O’Connor. That hiding, snivelling little worm’—her Goblin stamped its foot on the deck for emphasis—‘he organised this. There are fifty-seven semi-innocent people in the hold of this ship and he would have sent them all to their graves just to hurt us. That is the kind of man he is! That is the kind of desperate evil that leads our enemies. And that is why she turned her back on them. She hasn’t just saved us; the prisoners below owe you their lives too, Holly.’

  The crew nodded solemnly. Holly didn’t know what she was supposed to do; it didn’t seem right to nod along and agree that she was some kind of hero. She had gone from thinking she was about to die to being cheered and applauded so fast that her brain still hadn’t caught up; she was exhausted and confused and frightened; all she wanted now was to be given a dark room to curl up in and sleep for a week.

  ‘And now!!’ Suddenly the Goblin jerked sideways. Holly yelped in surprise as it began to trot up and down in front of the crew, almost prancing. Gennara’s arm snaked around her again, holding her steady. The sailors started to grin. ‘I suggest we show our newest member our gratitude and appreciation, lest all this heavy talk sink the damned ship and undo all her hard work!

  Holly squealed as Gennara’s hands gripped her wrists and raised them up and out to the sides, spreading her arms, jerking the wrists back and forth so that her hands waved involuntarily at the crowd.

  ‘Hip-hip!’ she cried.

  Marco…

  ‘Hooray!’

  ‘Hip-hip!’

  I’m sorry…

  ‘Hooray!’

  ‘Hip hip!’

  I’m so, so sorry…

  ‘Hooray!!!’

  I thought they would kill you…

  Gennara continued waving Holly’s hands like a puppeteer as the inevitable rendition of ‘for she’s a jolly good fellow’ started up. The crew sang and grinned at her, and she felt herself beginning to blush when she felt hot breath against the back of her ear and Gennara’s voice whispered:

  ‘I know you’re hating this. I’m sorry. It’s the Polity way, I’m afraid. We don’t do negativity very well. Bear with me. I’ll get it over with as fast as as I can.’

  The Goblin stamped a heel three times for attention and silence fell.

  ‘There is,’ she called out jubilantly, ‘secreted in my cabin, a case of the finest Lilymilk—shush, don’t explode with joy yet—intended for consumption at our destination. However, in recognition of the momentousness of the evening’s events, I believe it would not be unreasonable to ration out a small portion of it.’ The crew erupted anew with cheering. ‘Lady Broadwood, if you wouldn’t mind fetching it.’

  The crowd parted to allow the exit of a squat woman—the same woman who had earlier orchestrated the auditory deception of Marco by snapping beams of wood to mimic the snapping of bones. She consisted mostly of a huge barrel chest, appended with stumpy little legs that gave her a comical waddling gait, exacerbated by enormously long and muscular arms that reached almost to the floor. The arms were in three parts instead of the usual two, with an extra joint, a second elbow, linking the upper arm to the middle arm. As she scurried off, Holly briefly wondered what the woman needed those arms for so badly that made it worth looking so grotesque. She remembered the way she had used them to brace the thick beams of wood across her back to snap them… Was that the job she had designed her body to do? Snap beams of wood? Her name was Broadwood… whatever she did when she wasn’t sailing, it must be something to do with carpentry or tree-felling.

  She trotted back momentarily, glass bottles clinking in a case held above her head by her enormous arms.

  Gennara spoke to the grinning little woman with exaggerated politeness—‘You have my gratitude, my lusty little bag of muscle’—and a chuckle went up from the crew. ‘I am sorry to say, my little nobles and dignitaries, that one of the deprivations of being at sea is an absence of glasses; as such I am afraid you must, with my apologies, suffer the indecorum of drinking directly from the bottle.’ Sounds of delight rose from the crowd as bottles of syrupy white liquid were passed around. ‘And just to dismay you further, loves… I’m afraid the simultaneity required of a proper toast necessitates that you will, at great cost to your sense of propriety for which I fear I may never be able to adequately compensate you, be required to take a full bottle each. Now! The assassin is captured, the ship is safe, her course is set, and we will not arrive until well into the morning. So raise your drinks, you absurd, wonderful creatures, you dogged little survivors, you blessed pets of fortune, and honour the woman to whom we owe our continued survival!’

  Bottles and voices were raised in celebration. The drinking began.